ot
enough; he seemed to have entered into communication with the most
audacious criminal the country had known for years. The Sulaco police
knew, of course, what was going on. Padre Corbelan had got hold of that
reckless Italian, the Capataz de Cargadores, the only man fit for such
an errand, and had sent a message through him. Father Corbelan had
studied in Rome, and could speak Italian. The Capataz was known to visit
the old Dominican Convent at night. An old woman who served the Grand
Vicar had heard the name of Hernandez pronounced; and only last Saturday
afternoon the Capataz had been observed galloping out of town. He did
not return for two days. The police would have laid the Italian by the
heels if it had not been for fear of the Cargadores, a turbulent body of
men, quite apt to raise a tumult. Nowadays it was not so easy to govern
Sulaco. Bad characters flocked into it, attracted by the money in the
pockets of the railway workmen. The populace was made restless by Father
Corbelan's discourses. And the first magistrate explained to Charles
Gould that now the province was stripped of troops any outbreak of
lawlessness would find the authorities with their boots off, as it were.

Then he went away moodily to sit in an armchair, smoking a long, thin
cigar, not very far from Don Jose, with whom, bending over sideways, he
exchanged a few words from time to time. He ignored the entrance of the
priest, and whenever Father Corbelan's voice was raised behind him, he
shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

Father Corbelan had remained quite motionless for a time with that
something vengeful in his immobility which seemed to characterize all
his attitudes. A lurid glow of strong convictions gave its peculiar
aspect to the black figure. But its fierceness became softened as the
padre, fixing his eyes upon Decoud, raised his long, black arm slowly,
impressively--

"And you--you are a perfect heathen," he said, in a subdued, deep voice.

He made a step nearer, pointing a forefinger at the young man's breast.
Decoud, very calm, felt the wall behind the curtain with the back of his
head. Then, with his chin tilted well up, he smiled.

"Very well," he agreed with the slightly weary nonchalance of a man well
used to these passages. "But is it perhaps that you have not discovered
yet what is the God of my worship? It was an easier task with our
Barrios."

The priest suppressed a gesture of discouragement. "You believe neither